5c Pocahontas plate proof
Object Details
- Description
- Certified plate proofs are the last printed proof of the plate before printing the stamps at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. These plate proofs are each unique, with the approval signatures and date. For postal scholars these plates provide important production information in the plate margin inscriptions, including guidelines, plate numbers, and initials of the siderographer, or person who created the plate from a transfer roll.
- Plate No. 3560
- Denomination: 5c
- Subject: Pocahontas
- Color: blue
- Jamestown Exposition – Pocahontas, 1907
- The 5¢ design by Clair Aubrey Huston of Indian princess Pocahontas in an oval frame is based on a 1616 engraving by Simon Van de Passe (National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution collection). Legends claim that Pocahontas interceded to save the life of settler John Smith after the native peoples had taken him prisoner. Following a Christian baptism, she married John Rolfe, who took her to England in 1616. There she enchanted her husband’s countrymen and became the symbol for the New World’s exoticism.
- Data Source
- National Postal Museum
- Date
- 1907
- Object number
- 0.242263.4043
- Printer
- Bureau of Engraving and Printing
- Type
- Bureau Plate Proofs
- Medium
- paper; ink (blue) / engraving
- Place
- United States of America
- See more items in
- National Postal Museum Collection
- Title
- Scott Catalogue USA 330
- Topic
- The Gilded Age (1877-1920)
- Record ID
- npm_0.242263.4043
